Thursday, February 01, 2007

There is no such thing as a 'moderate' Palestinian

That Mahmoud Abbas is simply another Yasser Arafat in slightly more Western clothes is becoming more evident by the day. His recent pronouncement (in Arabic of course) imploring all Palestinians to turn their guns against Israelis, and his duplicity over the Eilat suicide bombing (which he condemned to the Western media, but which was carried out by members of his own Fatah organisation) are just two of many examples. I doubt if many people in the West (or even in Israel) realise that the constitution of the Fatah movement, which Abbas leads, still calls for the total annihilation of Israel (even I was under the impression that this had been removed from their constitution after the Oslo peace process). This document is every bit as chilling as the Hamas charter which assserts that "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." For a really excellent article on this subject read this one by Andrew C. McCarthy.